


even a blind man can see it

by Pom_Rania



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blind Character, Gen, I want to write more of this but I don't know if I ever will, but just in case subscribe if you like it, so apparently there isn't a fandom tag specifically for the Ragnarok movie, so it's marked as completed for now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 21:50:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pom_Rania/pseuds/Pom_Rania
Summary: Thor wasn't so lucky as to only lose one eye to Hela.





	even a blind man can see it

He was no stranger to pain. He was a warrior. Pain was an inherent part of fighting, and injuries were always a risk. He had, at various times, been stabbed, shocked, beaten, burned, frozen, impaled, and more. 

  He had thought he could handle whatever physically happened to him, but losing his eyes was beyond anything he had ever experienced. 

  He couldn’t think, couldn’t react. It was as if his entire being was constricted down into the space of the injury.

  She didn’t kill him. 

  He was only vaguely aware as she dragged his body along the ground, and then there was airflow and the sounds didn’t echo and the noise of far-off fighting came more clearly. They were outside, and on a balcony, probably. Was it the same one where the Valkyrie and Banner had dropped him off? He didn’t know. He had lost all sense of direction; he might be anywhere, for all he would know. 

  He was pulled up, then shoved down on something chest-height. The railing. She grabbed what was left of his hair and positioned his head, like she wanted to direct his gaze at something. 

  “…n’t tell you to ‘look’, but it doesn’t matter,” she said. “There is no escape. The Bifrost is –” and her words were drowned out by the rushing of blood in his head. He wondered if he was going to faint. “– even if I have to kill every single one of them to do it.”

  The Bifrost. Their only real way to evacuate that many people. If it was lost to them… that would be disastrous. 

  Had it all been for nothing? If they couldn’t rescue anyone, maybe they never should have – 

  Then, he heard it: a voice he’d grown up with, one he hadn’t really expected to ever hear again. Loki’s. He couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded grandiose. 

  Maybe his brother had decided to be unpredictable. It wasn’t like there was much that could make the situation any worse, and chaos favoured the less fortunate, if they were still in a position where they could be favoured at all. 

  He grinned, despite everything. 

  Apparently that was the wrong move. He felt a blade drive into his back. It wasn’t a major injury – it didn’t even hurt that much, comparatively – but it knocked the breath out of him. 

  It seemed like he was indeed going to faint. He remembered hearing tales of warriors who had swooned after a great battle in which they had suffered many injuries, and how he’d mocked the very idea. He had been so young then, so confident that strength could solve every problem. 

  He heard her say something. The tone was mocking, even if the words blurred together. It probably wasn’t important. He didn’t have any pride left to lose.

  She was fading in and out. So was his body. 

  Something was calling him, he could feel it. 

  He let it take him. 

  Then the pain was gone, and he stood on what felt like soft grass. He automatically took a step forward, then stumbled over nothing. He managed to stay upright, but it was difficult to keep his balance with nothing to see. He sank to his knees. 

  The ground was definitely covered in grass, he felt it under his hands. A soft breeze brushed at his face. He heard distant waves, but it was otherwise quiet, and it smelled of ocean and green. 

  This wasn’t Valhalla, and it couldn’t be Helheim, so he was still alive for the moment. Simple teleportation wouldn’t have erased the pain in his eyes – where his eyes had been – so that was eliminated. It had to be a vision, or more accurately a sending, since he still saw nothing but empty black. All he had to do was wait for whoever had contacted him to make their appearance, and listen to what they had to say. 

  “Even when you had your sight, you didn’t see the full picture.” 

  He turned, pointlessly, in the direction of the sound. 

  That was his father’s voice. Unexpected, yet somehow not surprising. Maybe that was a feature of the sending; maybe he had lost his capacity for surprise along with everything else. If he thought about it, everything that he could hear and smell reminded him of the Midgard coast where his father had died and she had appeared, that might be the link. 

  There had to be a purpose for the sending, other than to discuss his faults in a cryptic manner. Even if that would be in character. 

  “She’s too strong,” he said. “Blind, and without my hammer, I can’t....” 

  He couldn’t.... He hadn’t been able.... He wouldn’t be able.... 

  “Are you Thor, the god of hammers? Hm? That hammer was to help you control your power, focus it. It was never your source of strength.”

  He said it without thinking: “And I suppose my eyes were just holding me back, too?” 

  Even if it wasn’t from a family as historically bad at communication as his had been, there was nothing that could really be said in response to that. The hand on his shoulder was an attempt, at least. 

  Sound came before the contact, a sigh and a rustle; not much, but enough so that the touch didn’t startle him. It would be difficult, but he could learn to live like that. He would have to, if he survived, which was by no means guaranteed. 

  He did what his family had always done, whenever a conversation got too uncomfortable: he changed the subject. 

  “It’s too late,” he said. “Even if....” He shook his head. “She’s already taken Asgard.” 

  He thought of his home as he’d last seen it, as he’d seen it for the last time. The buildings had been intact, mostly, but there was an undeniable lifelessness about the place. Even aside from the undead warriors, infesting the place like armed rats. She didn’t care what she damaged in pursuit of her opponents, so it was probably worse, now. 

  She would likely end the day as the uncontested ruler of a ruin. And then both her rule and the ruin would expand in conquest, until there was nothing left, or until somebody else came along who was able to stop her. 

  “Asgard is not a place, never was.”

  And here he’d thought it was one of the Nine Realms, as he’d always heard it described. The more fool him, for believing what everybody said when he had also seen it with his own eyes and walked across it with his own legs and even grown up there. 

  “This could be Asgard. Asgard is where our people stand. Even now, right now, those people need your help.”

  His help. As if it would make a difference. He hadn’t been able stop her when she had been at her weakest, and she’d only gotten stronger. 

  He could keep her occupied for a bit, until she got bored of him and decided to finally kill him. Hopefully that would buy the others enough time. Hopefully that was all the help that they needed, because he couldn’t give any more.

  How could one go from losing everything, to saving an entire people? He couldn’t. He wasn’t the one they needed. 

  The Allfather hadn’t been stopped, or even slowed down, by losing an eye. Even total blindness would probably have been only a momentary inconvenience. 

  “I’m not as strong as you,” he said. 

  “No.”

  He was expecting it, but the blunt honesty still hurt – 

  “You’re stronger.”

  By the time he had processed that, he heard footsteps in the grass, walking away from him, and then only the sounds of wind and wave. He was alone again. 

  The Allfather had told many lies. He had been made painfully aware of that in the last few days. (Had it only been a few days? He felt like losing almost everything should take longer than that.) However, none of them had been for the sake of pointless cruelty. If he was meant to get back up and rejoin a seemingly-hopeless fight, then there had to be some intended purpose for it. 

  Was there hope, after all? There had to be. He had never intended to give up. He wasn’t dead yet. There was still something he could do.

  He had felt hopeless before, but somehow he had survived. He had lost so much, but he still had something. Something that couldn’t be taken from him, something that had granted him.... 

  Nothing else came as a message, and he supposed that the sending had served its purpose. He had what he needed, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what good it would do, now he needed to go back. 

  He didn’t close his eyes for concentration. He didn’t even know if he would be able to; that wasn’t important. He bowed his head, and reached centre-wise and outwards –

  The pain came rushing back to him, but so did something else. He could feel it surging through his body, like the blood in his veins. It gave him focus; it overpowered him and empowered him. It was indescribable, it was exhilarating, and it was the most natural thing in the world to him. 

  He had felt it before, but now, now it was so much more intense. It was everything he needed, everything he was. 

  “Tell me, brother,” Hela’s voice said into his ear; distant, like a bad dream. “What were you the god of again?”

  _Thunder._

  It didn’t matter if he was blind. Sight was useful for locating the target, but not always necessary. He didn’t need to worry about finding her, not when her hand was around his throat and she stood over him.

  Lightning danced along his fingers and through her nerves and in the sky, and he could feel it like it was a part of his body. 

  He called down the storm.


End file.
